The following is a summary of “Sudden Cardiac Death at Home: Potential Lives Saved With Fully Automated External Defibrillators” published in the January 2024  issue of Emergency Medicine by Gessman, et al.

Approximately 350,000 persons in the United States lose their lives each year as a result of sudden cardiac death caused by ventricular arrhythmia. Since the widespread availability of semi-automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to the general population and the instruction of nonbreathing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) protocols, this number has not decreased. 

CPR was performed by lay witnesses in 40% of instances when an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest occurred in a public place, while automated external defibrillators were used on just seven point four percent of patients before emergency medical services (EMS) arrived. There were around 70% of sudden cardiac deaths took place at home, where an automated external defibrillator was often unavailable until emergency medical services arrived. The period between a call to 911 and the onset of shock was around 7 minutes on average in metropolitan locations, whereas it was more than 14.5 minutes in rural settings. 

Since arrest onset was often not seen, the time it takes from arrest onset to shock may be significantly longer. Every minute of ventricular arrhythmia was associated with a seven to ten percent drop in the likelihood of survival after a cardiac arrest. It was recommended that a prearrest procedure be used for the at-home usage of fully automated external defibrillators in certain cardiac patients. The protocol is intended to decrease the time between the arrest and the shock to less than one minute, and it may remove the need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation in some instances.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196064423006455